Thursday 3 January 2013

Knit one, purl one, drop one, panic

The fruits of my labours
I have started knitting! It's something I have sort of been thinking about doing for a while, mainly because some of the people whose blogs I lurk on produce such lovely knitted items. Just as with sewing, I watched my mum knit throughout my childhood. (She eventually stopped because she found it caused a lot of pain to her neck and shoulders.) I learned to knit from her when I was in secondary school but to the best of my recollection I never finished anything or even really got very far. Apparently 2013 is going to be the year that I change that. :D? :D? :D!


My tiny stash of knitting wool





The timing is pure serendipity. I've been thinking vaguely about wanting to do some knitting for a few months. Then, in the space of a few days, several different things came together to push me further along the path. My mum is involved in clearing a house after a death in the family and I was asked if I'd like a very small collection of wool and needles that were otherwise going to the charity shop. The Craftsy sale happened and I decided to pick up the Knit Lab beginner's class while it was cheap. I've seen SO MANY lovely knitted things in people's "Things I Made In 2012" round-ups and was seriously envious. I also kept thinking that the big problem with my current crafty interests is that I can't take it with me when I travel. I've been on a 2 week break from doing ANYTHING crafty just because I've been a long way from my sewing stuff.




First project: Broken Rib Scarf by Valerie Owens

As always, the difficulty is in known how best to start. So far, I've done some practice knitting along with the Knit Lab class. After watching the cast on, knit and purl classes, all of which I already knew but had more than half forgotten, I pulled out some random little balls of grey wool from the vintage stash I'd been given and cast on the skinny practice scarf at the top of the page. It's not intended to be good, or even really usable. It's just intended to get my back in practice knitting and purling and getting my tension reasonably even. I invented the "pattern" based on the Knit Lab exercises teaching you how to knit and purl -- it's basically just stocking stitch, and then reversed every four rows. (So: KPKP, PKPK, etc ad infinitum).

Once I am done with my grey wool (and I've used about half to the point you can see in the first photo) I'm just going to cast off and then keep it as my first ever knitting project. I'm hoping that when I do a round up of the things I did in 2013 I can haul it out again and be pleased at how far I've come from when I started.

It's a Boucle Wrap by Joanne Seif



I've been using Ravelry really extensively (I'm calathea243 over there) to find patterns and projects. I have a queue of four things, the first two of which should use up the bulk of my inherited yarn. First, I'm going to make a Broken Rib Scarf using the small balls of burgundy you can see in the middle on the left of my stash photo. Next, I'm going to make the It's A Boucle Wrap using the deep red boucle wool in hanks in the top left. That will just leave some random oddments of wool that I can use as scrap and practice wool, and at that point I will buy some new to make my next project. :D

The one thing I am absolutely certain of is that I really REALLY can't build any stash for knitting. I just can't. I have so much fabric, so many patterns, so much STUFF for bags and clothes, plus two other new acquisitions that I will talk about more soon, and just no. I can't stash wool, and I can't buy anything on paper for knitting. I'm going to have to be disciplined and just buy what I need for each active project as I go along.

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